( 2Min theme: Aurora )

Holding Taemin’s hand, the trees began to part at the top of the slope they walked on. At the top of the slope, downward, was the familiar place Minho and Taemin instantly smiled when they saw.

Namwon was just below them and the dawn sky; the same entrance from the outside into the town still there and untouched as ever. Minho almost shook with anticipation.

Nothing in the town had changed. The buildings were the same, the calm nature was the same, and the people walked along streets, all the same.

  “So this is Namwon,” Bom looked around it with a small smile, “It’s really beautiful here, Minho.”

Without a word, Minho grabbed Bom’s hand as Taemin started heading down eagerly. Minho couldn’t blame him for it. It was almost a year without being home and to think it still felt like home instead of foreign territory. Déjà vu was all over the place in Minho’s body and he felt it in Taemin, too.

Minho was ready to get back into his own bed, watch his own TV, cook for himself again, and see everyone he knew. He was so ready to go back to normal without his secret laying on his chest. The only one he cared about was Taemin. All he wanted was Taemin to know his secret and he could live.

And now Taemin knew and accepted it.

  “I can’t believe we’re back!” Taemin jogged, tugging everyone with him, “It’s real!”

Minho laughed, feeling complete relief when they entered the entrance without a problem. It was like they were just playing around and running. Like there wasn’t a single problem in the world, but just carefree nature. Minho loved it.

  “First, let’s go home, Taemin slowed down, moving them on to a street that had no one on it, “Minho has no shirt and we all probably smell awful.”

The three of them roamed down the street with smiles on each of their faces as they looked around. Bom seemed excited the most, seeing new land and what has become of architecture while she was imprisoned. She looked to everywhere she could see or touched the walls of buildings and close houses. She was fascinated by the human creation; especially all the peace that seemed to be the aura of Namwon.

  “Reminds me of home,” she hummed thoughtfully, “Feels like home.”

Minho looked at her, seeing the soft, thoughtful look on her face. He nudged her arm with a smile, “You could always delay the empire. Stay here for a while with us.”

Bom looked at him and Taemin, the answer unwavering, “I think that’s what I’ll do, actually.”

Arriving at the apartment complex, they entered with Bom going in first. She slightly jumped when the cooler air had blown over her when she entered, “What is that?”

  “Air conditioning,” Taemin laughed, heading up the stairs to the next floor, “It’s summer, right now, so it’s going to be on until fall.” Upon standing on the next floor, waiting for the other two to come up he asked, “Didn’t you guys have heaters and air conditioners? I mean, I did . . .”

Minho shook his head, “We weren’t given that luxury unless we were in the infirmary.”

Taemin looked away, almost ashamed of the question he asked. I’m sorry, I never really realized it.

  “It’s okay,” Bom entered the floor, “No need to be sorry for it, anyhow.”

Taemin nodded unsurely as he went up the next flight of stairs followed by the other two. This was their floor, their apartment door just near them. Minho felt the excitement come off of him. He was going to be back in his own home for the rest of his life without a worry someone would take it away from him.

  “Um,” Taemin took his bag and started rummaging through it, “The key’s in here somewhere. . .”

Taemin brought out the keys with a jingle of other assortments of keys attached to the ring, taking the gold key and putting it into the lock, opening the quiet door and letting everyone in before himself.

Minho took his shoes off by the door, his socks touching the carpet he’d put in by himself back then. The living room was in immediate sight; the gray couch against the right wall, a light brown coffee table in front of it. The doors to the small balcony had remained untouched and dirty. There was the TV by the left wall on a small table; the same wall open with a view of the small kitchen.

Minho walked into the hallway, even peering into the kitchen. Dust had collected everywhere with a few cobwebs here and there. He opened the first door on his right; originally it was Taemin’s first room when they moved in. They slept in different rooms because they weren’t really ready to take it to one bed. It was now just a plain white room with an old mattress against the wall. There was a computer on a large desk that hadn’t been in ages. Minho opened the window in there and kept the door open, hoping to air out all the dust.

He didn’t bother with the bathroom or the closet, but with his door at the end of the hall, he opened it, sighing in relief everything was still untouched.

The large bed was as messy as they’d left it. The thick green covers were falling off the bed and the pillows had deep punctures in them. That’s the way he left it the day they went camping; Taemin literally dragged him out of bed claiming they were late. The walls were white, but covered in different posters of American actors and Seoul musicians, some of them out-of-place scenery.

The room was a bit of a mess with the things Minho didn’t pack either on the bed or on the floor; their closet wide-open with articles of clothing all around the floor that Taemin didn’t bother cleaning up while he was looking for a heavy coat.

That reminded him. They didn’t even have their things that they brought with them. Maybe if someday they’d go back to the spot, their stuff just might be there unless they took it.

  “Everything okay?” Taemin came up behind him.

Minho nodded and gestured into the room, “Everything is as clean as you left it.”

Taemin got a look in their room and scrunched his mouth, “I swear I didn’t leave it like this, maybe it was you . . .”

Minho scoffed, returning back to the living room where Bom was looking out the sliding door, “Do you want to go out there?”

She looked startled and shook her head, “No. I’m good where I am.” She shifted in her clothes.

  “Go ahead and take those off, I know you don’t like them,” he suggested to her, “I’ll turn on the shower for you and everything and you can get cleaned up first.”

Bom smiled and walked from the door, starting to take off her shirt, revealing the traditional attire underneath, “Thank you.”

  “The food hasn’t even gone bad,” Taemin looked at Minho through the space of the wall, Minho sitting on the couch in the living room, “It’s still preserved. The fridge is still working. Power’s still on. Water’s on . . . Minho, who’s been paying the bills for this?”

  “I have a pretty good idea who,” Minho got up from the couch, hands in his pockets while looking out the doors, “I’m pretty sure Seunghyun did something while we were gone.”

Taemin shut the fridge, three bottles of water in his hand, giving one to Minho and putting the other on the coffee table. Sitting on the couch, Taemin shagged his hair, This is all his fault, isn’t it. Probably is.

  “Don’t start placing blame,” Minho said, not moving from his spot, “That’s not going to help anything, right now.”

Taemin choked off embarrassed words, forgetting Minho could still hear him, “Is there any way for you to leave my mind?”

Minho turned to him with a big smile on his face, “Only if I want to.”

  “Minho!”

Minho chuckled, retracting from Taemin’s head and hearing silence, “I’m out, don’t worry.”

Taemin raised a brow, not trusting Minho at all. Of course he’d be the one to know when Minho’s lying or joking; it was one of the first thing’s Taemin bothered to remember when they first met. Minho played around with him all the time. He just wanted to hear Taemin whine or complain, but instead, the younger would just joke back or manage him in a playfully-threatening headlock.

  “Seriously, I’m out!” Minho widened his eyes, joking how offended he was.

Taemin held his hands up defensively before crossing his arms. The two of the kept quiet as the sounds of the shower proceeded on with Bom inside. Taemin thought of something and got up, leaving the living room.

  “Where are you going?” Minho asked.

  “Well she needs clothes, doesn’t she?” Taemin turned, giving Minho a look as if he were stupid, “She’s not parading or in that uniform. I’m sure she’ll fit your pants, but my shirts.”

Minho laughed, “Why my pants?”

  “Because,” he leaned on the wall, “Mine are too skinny—have you seen her fantastic legs? She’ll suffocate in my size. Rather be baggy than tight.”

Taemin left the room and Minho looked out the doors again. He was staring a little far off into a neighborhood with a house slightly isolated from the rest and much older looking by a forest. That was where Seunghyun was and that’s where they were going.

But then Minho thought that maybe they should see him tomorrow. They were all exhausted and even though the seemed to have peace of mind now, Minho surely knew all three of them were going to break down at some point during the day over what happened.

It was his fault Onew and Luna didn’t make it out. He should’ve at least gone with them so he could just as quickly pull them out and along. But he didn’t. He just let them go. He didn’t give any thought to it.

How could he have done that to them? Just abandon them like that. They were human, not super-creatures! He overestimated them completely about being able to escape, but it seemed so reasonable. Onew was not set to die at all, or even let Luna die. Minho was so sure Onew would make some escape route in case something went wrong. He was so sure.

Minho saw it in his mind. The two of them running only to be trapped by falling parts of the building. He could just see Luna screaming and Onew clutching on to her, trying to find some way out.

He thought of Jonghyun by Kibum’s grave, sitting there while waiting for something to go off . . .

He leaned his head on the door, stopping himself from tearing up at the thought of it.

  “Stop it,” he heard Taemin weakly call, “Stop putting these thoughts in my head.”

Minho sharply turned to Taemin with his bag in his hand, staring at Minho broken-hearted, “I’m sorry. You need to pull out of my head, too. Just tense up your mind and push and you’ll be out.”

Taemin struggled a bit to pull away but did eventually, his eyes reddening considerably as he sat on the couch, “It’s not your fault. I’m not going to blame you. They cared for others and that’s what they did to the very . . . end. I hate thinking it or even saying it, but I’d rather them die while trying to do good rather than just from failing to leave.

  “But, I found some things,” Taemin hefted up the bag on to the coffee table, “I don’t know how they got in there because they weren’t there before we left.”

Minho breathed out slowly, sitting next to Taemin on the couch as he watched the younger pull out a stone.

  “It says ‘Kibum.’”

Minho took the stone that was offered to him with shock, seeing that it really had Kibum’s name on it. Then Jonghyun gave it to him somehow for some reason. Minho looked over the stone, trying to find something more significant and he had; hastily were the marks of an individual part of Jonghyun’s claw writing symbols on the back of the stone.

Tell him everything for me. I want everyone to know what love really is.

Love you guys. Don’t miss me too much. I’m probably sitting right next to you.

Taemin leaned over to read what Jonghyun had wrote, suddenly looking next to where Minho sat, but blinked and realized he wasn’t going to see anything, “Tell me everything, huh? I guess that’s for another time.”

  “Yeah,” Minho covered his mouth with his hand thoughtfully, trying to cover up his watery mouth, “Yeah, later.”

They both stared at the engravings Jonghyun had made until Minho put it down, unable to stare at it any longer. Jonghyun would’ve been able to tell him himself, but no, he but Minho up to that because he just had to go and die.

  “That’s not all. The camera’s in here—I think Luna put that in,” he brought out the recording camera. He flipped the side lens open.

Um, Minho how do you stop this thing.

  “Hold on,” Minho shouted out, getting up from the couch, “Wait a second, just let me go help her.”

Minho left the living room, knocking on the bathroom door but let in immediately. He was greeted with Bom dry and fully dressed with damp hair and a bare face. She wore Taemin’s black shirt and Minho’s old skinny jeans that seemed too big at her ankles. Minho could still see traces of her traditional attire underneath; he guess she wasn’t letting it go now.

  “Do you want to blow-dry your hair?” he asked as he turned off the shower.

  “I’m okay,” she put her hair into a bun.

Minho stood straight and lead her out of the bathroom. He would’ve asked Taemin if he wanted to go next, but he knew the camera held his attention too much to bother yet.

  “Oh, how was it?” Taemin looked up at her with a sincere smile.

  “Having a waterfall whenever you want? Genius,” she raised her brows, excited.

The two of them sat back down, Bom leaning back on the couch and almost falling asleep. Minho took the camera from Taemin and went through the named recordings sessions that started from the earliest records.

  “There’s only three. One of me, one of pitch black, and the last one says your name,” Minho said, “I’m guessing we look at that one. And it’s an old camera, so I can’t plug it into the TV. . .”

  “Just play it,” Taemin grew closer.

Minho clicked a little button in confirmation and the recording started rolling.

  “Is it on?” Onew asked Luna.

She looked behind her and nodded her head as she locked her room’s door, going back to sit down next to Onew in front of the bunk bed, “Alright, let me take it.”

She took the camera and faced it towards them, flipping the lens to see where the focal point was, “Oh good lord, you have it zoomed in on my nose,” she pressed a button and then she could see the two of them in the lens.

The two of them smiled awkwardly at the camera and the Luna nudged Onew, “Hi! If you’re watching this that means you guys are completely out of harm’s way! Thank god you guys are safe, and we really do hope you guys are. I have no doubt in my mind Minho won’t get us out.”

Luna looked at Onew and nudged him again, “Speak, come on.”

  “I’m not good with these things—oh, hi, hi!” Onew stumbled as she brought the camera closer to his face, “Back it up!”

Luna chuckled and held the camera back correctly again.

  “We’re making this now because I know once we all get out, I’m probably going to be really . . . I don’t know . . . embarrassed to talk to you about things, Tae. So I just want to talk now. So, hey, uh, me out there? This is where you should leave before you, well, laugh at yourself.”

Onew took a few seconds before he talked, thinking if he gave his future self the time to leave, he would do it, “Alright. So today is about . . . a week away before we head out?” he looked at Luna and she only nodded her head, “Okay, a week away. And you know, Taemin, I’m really sorry I never went to see you. I just thought it would make a lot of things easier before we planned this whole escape. I wanted you to forget Minho, really, so you wouldn’t end up like Kibum. If you forgot your memory of Minho, you’d be okay. The thing is, your memory of Minho might be gone, but the rest of the prison would’ve remained a little hazy to you. And if you saw me and we were together and you decided to forget, you’d come looking for this place all over and, well, people have done that before and we’ve never seen them again.”

Onew pushed his hair out of his face, trying to calm himself from getting too fussy, “I was afraid if you saw me, you’d know. Then you wouldn’t want to forget at all. That wouldn’t have just been hard on you Tae, but on me, too. I know I don’t deserve any of the focus, but if I kept myself around you, I would’ve attached back on to you like I was when you were little. I could only protect you from so far to keep myself sane.

  “I hated Minho at first. The very first moment I saw it was you and him, I despised the hell out of him—I’m really sorry, Minho,” he apologized scratching his head in shame, “It’s just . . . at first I thought why did it have to be you? Why did you have to have this relationship with a creature? I thought it was Minho’s fault that put you through this. Sure, Minho’s got some faults over what happened, but he was protecting you from that guy. I had to give him some leverage of the situation. That’s why I spoke to you on the way, Minho. I blamed you at first, but I wasn’t seeing a monster-like territorial situation going on here. Pulling you away while you tried forcing yourself to Taemin to help . . . I changed my mind in seconds. I mean, I still hated you, don’t get me wrong, but . . . look it’s complicated!” Onew complained.

Luna leaned her head on Onew’s, “What he’s trying to say is that, what’s happened to you guys clearly shouldn’t have happened but at the same time, now it’s a good thing. Taemin knows about you, Minho. And he’s doing so well with coping with it. Better than any survivor I’ve ever met. It usually takes years to get over the trauma when you aren’t forced to work for SangJung.

  “Hold on,” she groaned, turning to put the camera on the bed, turning Onew to face it, “My arm hurts.”

She situated the camera at the right angle and the two got on their knees, “This thing is weird, I don’t know how other people would do this.” She held and arm around Onew and he returned the gesture, “Taemin you’ve given us so much hope of starting our lives. That’s all we’ve wanted since we’ve got here. To think, it’s Onew’s brother that gets us out of here!”  she chuckled with disbelief, “Either way, once we’re out of here, well, now that we’re out of there, we’re ready to get going. I know I’m ready for us all to be one family. In . . . Namwon?” she looked at Onew briefly, “In Namwon with all of you!”

Onew smiled and looked down. He liked it when Luna got excited over these thoughts. Before, he kept her from them because they seemed like impossible and just wishful thinking. He was glad he didn’t have to be the negative aspect to bring her down from that.

  “You know, at first, I didn’t want to do it,” Luna admitted, shaking her head as her face fell. Onew hated that, “The first time we escaped, Jonghyun got injured and forced us to leave him behind. And we were so close to freedom, but it wasn’t just Onew and I. I had a brother, Taemin. A young brother. Let’s just say he was hurt before we got out and we went back for him. We ended up never leaving because I was too busy mourning for my dead brother,” she breathed in and out slowly, “I never wanted to try again. I was afraid it would happen again. And Minho, I know you know that’s why I flipped out that one day. I didn’t think I was attached to you, but I actually was and I didn’t want to risk it—especially when we’d have another human in tow. I didn’t want Taemin to end up like Sungmin.”

Luna groaned and leaned back until she just laid on the ground, “I hate confessions.”

Onew somberly chuckled, leaning down, now both of them out of the cameras view and silently kissed her for a moment before forcing her back up.

She sighed, “You haven’t been a romantic in forever. It’s still weird to get used to that change.”

Onew hummed and kissed her cheek before looking at the lens, “Anyway, um, well, escaping to Luna was like a big red light. A warning for her to completely stop and was too dangerous or overboard to do. It’s always been a red light, never green, but with convincing about you, Taemin, well, here she is now.”

Onew looked at her again, looking at the yellow patches of skin on her body. He wanted to get angry right then and there when he remembered why they were there so suddenly.

  “Stop it,” she whispered, forcing his head back toward the camera, “So now that we’re out, we’ll be fine with however long it’ll take to get comfortable on our own. Of course we’re not going to parade in your lives—like live with you. We’ll make sure to find a home nearby, because we clearly don’t want to be far at all from you.”

  “And maybe a year in Namwon,” Onew cleared his throat, “We planned that maybe we could get married. And um . . . start that family we talked about with Minho . . . why is this embarrassing,” he lowered his voice.

  “Little Sungmin or Naeun!” Luna jumped up, almost bumping her shoulder to Onew face, “Little niece or nephew, Taemin! Maybe more than that!”

Onew’s eyes bulged out, “Hold on, what happened to ‘let’s see what happens with the first one?’”

  “I’m trying to be optimistic, here. Either way, it’s going to happen,” she smiled brightly getting a little closer to the camera, “So let’s all be happy, now. The toughest part of out lives is over and we can finally move on . . . and don’t question why we made this—Onew’s just horrible with words. Love you guys!”

Onew looked at her with slight offense before he shook his head with a smile, waving to the camera, “Bye, guys. Love you.”

Luna reached out and turned off the camera, “Good? Not too bad so you’ll less embarrassed to see yourself later?”

  “I’ll handle it,” Onew closed the lens, “It’s not like I’ll die because of it.”

Luna nodded and invited herself to kiss him again, “We can do this more often, too, yeah?”

Onew kissed her back, taking the camera from her hands and putting it on the ground, “More often, more than this, yeah. Yeah, we will.”

Taemin hid his face into Minho’s shoulder, unable to even mask his cries, “God damn it.”

Minho put the camera down as it still ran in a pitch black screen, holding on to Taemin to make sure he didn’t cry too hard.

It was hard to just look at them. They were so happy and they had an entire plan for their lives and they didn’t get the chance to do it. There was no family being reunited or created. Bits and pieces of broken parts of them were just sticking to who was left.

  “Oh, Luna,” Bom quietly said, rubbing her face as she lifted her back off the couch, “She never told me she wanted to be a mother. . .”

  “My brother was going to be a dad!” Taemin cried out into Minho, “He wanted to be a dad! Luna was going to . . . she was going to . . . Luna!”

Minho held on to Taemin, refraining from crying as hard as him. He couldn’t do it, he had to be strong. He had to realize they weren’t in any danger anymore.

  “Minho!” Bom called him, “The screen’s static!”

Taemin lifted from Minho. The lens really did go static, a shaky scene of one of the hallways leading out of a building of the prison on it. The static kept going, but stopped at points.

  “Take—to him!” Onew’s voice was made out.

   “On—need—no time!” Luna came on the screen, running to him as the recording kept going in and out.

  “Take this to him!” Onew shouted, the familiar flying bird in front of him, “Take—Bookbag—gate!”

Onew quickly turned the camera on the two of them, “Don’t worry—” there was a loud thud and a building behind them collapsed, “Don’t—about us!”

  “Take it!” Luna shouted, forcing the camera into the bird’s mouth that opened wide, “Give—him!”

And then the scene left the two and showed the explosions in the southern prison, flying away to find the main gate and head there. A part of the beak must have stopped the recording when the screen went black.

Taemin covered his mouth and began crying again.

It was clear evidence the two of them hadn’t made it out of the prison. Taemin shouldn’t have seen that—he shouldn’t have. This was going to mess him up worse.

And Minho’s throat wasn’t cooperating with him.

The three of them began mourning again over the death of the two, Minho and Bom also moving on to Jonghyun.

Minho thought they were going to be happy from then on, after the crying. But he didn’t know yet.

So they all cried into exhaustion and began resting on the couch.

  “Knock on the door,” Taemin quietly encouraged Minho.

The three of them stood in front of Seunghyun’s house and Minho’s former home. After they slept for a half hour, the two cleaned up and they slowly set their way to the house to see Seunghyun. It was the last thing they needed to do before they settled down.

Minho didn’t specifically want to see Seunghyun because he was frustrated with him more than he was happy to see him alive. Thinking about all the lies he told, the neglect he gave, the ignorance of not coming to his rescue.

  “That last part is part of the legacy, Minho,” Bom warned him, “You can’t blame him for that.”

  “But he knew,” Minho sighed, “And he never told me this was going to happen.”

Bom put a hand on his shoulder, “Minho. You were completely reluctant when I told you everything. You wanted none of Daesung. Would you think even if he told you earlier, you’d be fine with it? Hell no, Minho. You’d run away, and you know it. None of this would’ve been fixed if he said something.

  “But his lies,” Bom lifted her brows, “I still have something for that.”

Minho shook his head, the smile back on his face as he knocked on the door three times.

There was no answer at the door and Minho didn’t think anything of it as he knocked again. The second time, he grew worried that Bom had been wrong and Seunghyun really was killed by SangJung. Minho knocked again and again and got panicked before Bom stopped him.

  “Try out back,” Bom held his arm before he almost punched the door, “I hear something.”

Minho looked back at her and put his arm down. He grabbed on to Taemin’s hand and led them out back to the small yard before the trees created their border. The yard was empty, but at the borderline of trees, a tall man in tan pants and a soft pink button up had tools in his hands and at his feet as he carved into a tree. Minho knew this was one of his habits; carving history into trees. Minho never knew what any of it meant before and he was inclined to take a second look.

But he was there. Seunghyun was there. Alive.

They stood a few meters away from him. Seunghyun put down a tool to pick up another one until he saw Minho’s company behind him.

He stood straight and looked at Minho. A very tiny welcoming smile on his face with a nod of his head, “You’ve done well. Very well.”

Minho slightly shook his head, “. . . I’ve done well? That’s all you have to say?”

Seunghyun pushed his glasses up and wiped his hands together, “You’ve done what you needed to do. I’m proud of you.”

Minho rubbed his eyes with a hand in frustration. He’s done well? Did what he needed to do? Proud? He still sounded the same after everything. Well sure, Seunghyun never gave any compliments before but he still sounded like this was a strict relationship. No “I miss you” or “I’m glad you’re safe.” It was the last thing Minho expected of Seunghyun, but it still didn’t feel right.

  “I’ve gone through hell for the past year!” Minho yelled at him, “And you couldn’t even think to warn me about this? Do you know how fair that was?!”

  “Calm down,” Seunghyun suggested to him with a level voice, unaffected.

Minho slapped his head, “Really? That’s it?”

  “As much as I never liked you, Minho, it was never personal,” Seunghyun said, “I had lost the closest people to me at your birth. I was given orders to say nothing of your parents. I was given order to make sure your heart didn’t succumb to the wrath of your own fire. And in the end, all you’ve been through with me has made you stronger and a person greater than me—that was the goal.”

Seunghyun moved the tools aside with his feet and kneeled down on one knee, bowing to Minho, “King Daegrent.”

Minho stood frozen in shock at Seunghyun’s bow. Never in his entire eternity did he think Seunghyun would ever do anything close to a bow. To give a sign of respect despite his hatred. To be at least a little encouraging.

  “Seunghyun . . . can you just get up,” Minho grew almost embarrassed—it felt weird that Seunghyun was bowing to a kid.

Seunghyun stood from the ground, wiping his pants off, his face neutral, “Alright, now that that’s over with. Taemin, how are you?”

Taemin raised a brow, but rubbed his neck, “I’m doing fine, thank you, sir.”

  “I hope you weren’t treated too roughly,” Seunghyun sincerely wished, “I didn’t expect it for me, though. The prison men came to Namwon looking for me. Nearly trashed the house—I almost killed one of them because of it. I was out of Namwon for days being hunted down by a man named SangJung until he gave up his search.”

  “He gave up?” Minho’s mouth dropped, “That gave up?”

So SangJung wasn’t as mighty as he made himself out to be. It didn’t matter what purpose SangJung had for stopping, he still hadn’t caught Seunghyun and he never could in the end.

  “He left lookouts for days, but they soon left within two months,” Seunghyun rubbed one of his eyes, “I had to have a long-distant friend come by to combine power with me to freeze the minds of the people and blind them from what was happening. No one knows how long you’ve been gone for. They’ve all been exposed to a memory of you two returning and continuing on. That’s why there are no missing posters, if you noticed. I put the impression that the past week you two went to Seoul for Taemin’s birthday.

Minho coughed out a little in awkwardness of how rude he’d been when Seunghyun was really being a good person while they left. Now the problems with family and friends could be avoided and everything was going to be perfectly fine, “Um, thanks.”

  “Now,” Seunghyun looked at Bom, “Do you mind introducing me to this—”

Bom strode up to Seunghyun like no-one’s business, grabbed him by the back of his head, and pushed his face into the tree he was carving in.

Seunghyun burst out into a curse as he took off his glasses and held on to his nose.

And Minho couldn’t help but to laugh on the inside.

  “Miss, what the hell—”

  “You have abused an order given to you by your friend, Seunghyun,” she scolded him, “You were told to say nothing about his parents or as much as seen fit for the child. You were not permitted to lie to the King! Parents forbidden to care for their births? How could you be so ridiculous! And you never touched upon all of Daesung’s history, how could you be let that slip from our young King? You left the impression Daesung was still alive!” she ranted

Seunghyun looked up at the woman, “I apologize, Miss. I was only doing what I saw fit. The part about our King was not included in the scrolls I had been given nor any history of the bloodline changing.”

  “You could’ve told him about it.” Bom crossed her arms, “You have no excuses.”

Seunghyun stood straight, letting go of his nose and towering over Bom, “And who do you think you may be, Miss? To order me around?”

Bom looked around once before she forced off her shirt and jeans, revealing her attire to Seunghyun, crossing her arms again.

  “. . . I’ve seen this attire,” Seunghyun took a slight step back, “The attire of our creatures who migrated to the earth . . .” he got a good look at her face, inspecting it closely, “One of my secret scrolls—your face . . .” he realized, “You’re Park Bom, King Daesung’s closest companion.” He carefully took her right wrist, seeing the feint glow of the Daegrent mark, “You have Royal power . . . You’re the new Queen.”

He suddenly bowed again, shaking his head, “I would have never thought I would meet Park Bom.”

  “Rise,” she sighed, “And I won’t lie when I say—” she turned to Minho with an amused smile, “I actually enjoyed that.”

Seunghyun got to his feet and combed back his brown hair, “I would’ve appreciated something otherwise, but let’s go with that only this one time. You could’ve broken the tree,” he gestured to the carving with an apologetic smile Minho never saw before.

The other two walked up, seeing the carved tree Seunghyun had worked on. It was the scenery of the explosion with Taemin and Minho together and Bom a little back leaning on a tree on top of the hill.

  “The Prophecy’s wrath travelled to my mind’s eye,” he patted the tree, “As many things Yoochun decides to put behind my eyes, I put on these trees,” he gestured to every tree in sight, “Minho has seen all of them before; he never knew a lot of them were of him.”

Minho wandered a familiar path through the trees as he had when he was younger. He really never knew what any of them meant, but now looking at it, they were all clear. Some of them had Minji and Daesung’s history, other’s had Minho’s face as he got older. There were trees with Minho in his prison room, working, a Daegrent and a Taerant fighting each other, a broken wing, and the land The Prophecy was on. These were carved back when Minho was little and he couldn’t believe he missed all of it.

  “Let’s go in,” Seunghyun invited them inside, “There’s much to talk about.”

Seunghyun had let Bom stay over the house as Minho and Taemin had gone back to the apartment. Minho resulted in cooking for the first time in forever, shaky with what he was doing, but remembered how to at least use the rice cooker. It wasn’t long before the two were in their bedroom, eating together on the bed while trying to have their eyes adjust to a TV screen. They had the news channel on; chanting about the most violent earthquake in the history of South Korea, but no evidence of the earthquake was found, therefore investigation was taking place.

But Minho and Taemin knew they would find nothing.

  “Do you think Bom and Seunghyun will end up together?” Taemin asked, swallowing the rice.

Minho grimaced at the thought, “No. Bom’s heart is only for Daesung. It’s been a very, very long time since Daesung died—it’s almost like forever ago—and Bom’s love stayed with him and I think it always will be.”

Taemin gave a silent ‘Oh’ and went back to eating again, eyes trying to adjust to the bright scene on the screen, “I know I don’t want to bring this up right now, but I want to get it over with because I’m not through with crying, but at the same time I’m already ready to stop. We keep mourning on and off, and it’s only been one day, but I really want to be done with it,” he put the bowl down and looked at Minho, “What should we do about Onew and Luna?”

Minho swallowed his own rice and shrugged, “Well, I guess we can put tombstones in the cemetery; I bet I could make that happen, now. But for now, how about I go take that camera to Nichkhun and see if he can get a large picture printed off of it? We could get it framed and put it on the wall above the couch. Sure, there would need to be a story behind it, but I think we can be more truthful than start a lie.”

Taemin scrunched his mouth up and looked at the walls of the room covered all up, “The living room needs redecorating as much as our room needs to be,” he nudged Minho with a soft laugh, “But yeah, I think the ideas the best out of any.”

The two of them finished eating, cleaned up, and readied for bed. Minho turned out the lights and they both slid under the covers, grabbing on to each other in the dark.

Minho missed the soft mattress and airy pillow. He never thought he’d miss it so much after complaining how hard he thought they both used to be, but there’s a clear difference between a prison and home.

Everything felt so right. So normal yet so new. And he was glad it wasn’t going to change now.

He was going to sleep when Taemin kissed him, opening his eyes to see the younger wasn’t sleeping yet.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Taemin chuckled softly.

Minho furrowed his brows, “. . . What do you want, then?”

Taemin stared at him hard and Minho slapped himself on the head as Taemin’s thoughts invaded.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No.”

  “After all you’ve been through today and yesterday,” Minho’s eyes bulged out of his head, “You just want to . . . how are you not exhausted?”

Taemin kissed him again, “After you bit me, I got the adrenaline you know? And it still . . . I still feel brand new and all and just . . . I’m not as exhausted.”

Minho slapped his head again and his back, “I can’t believe I did that to you. Me. We’re on a rollercoaster of emotions right now, good god.”

Taemin chuckled again, “So how ‘bout it?”

Minho looked over at him for a moment before he just let go and kissed Taemin back, rolling Taemin on to him.

  “I’m still tired, but I love you, so fine.”

It had been a year since the prison had fallen to ash and the three went to Namwon. Their lives started over again as if nothing really happened.

Bom had left a month in to her freedom to retrace her steps to the ash land. She was keeping her promise to rebuild the empire, claiming there was a major surplus of creatures waiting for her to arrive and start their new home. It didn’t feel like a departure at all; Minho would see her from time to time or hear her in his head. Sometimes it was cursing from accidentally hurting herself.

Minho and Taemin resumed with the college courses online as they worked. Despite being a King of creatures, he was still a small citizen among humans and needed work. He really hadn’t known what he wanted to do, but he began studying architecture, construction, and mechanics. The creatures were taking their time creating the new and improved Empire—they planned to expand it even further than before—and they had much time to use, so they took their time. Minho felt he could make contribution to them by studying this but as well as Namwon, having a variety of skills to go into people’s home to fix things or build something on the street. But so far, he was only studying, so the job he already had being a cashier in a local store was all he had.

Taemin was less of a dancer before and making less frequent leisure trips to the small gym he always went to. He started studying in the science fields as well as history. He was more intrigued in the creatures’ history than anything, and he wanted to see what of human history was true or not; what in science was explained correctly or not. Of course, Taemin would not reveal anything to anyone, whether anything was right or wrong, but having his own satisfaction with it sufficed. His job wasn’t exact, but he did a lot of things for the library up their street and it paid well.

The ‘bond’ between Seunghyun and Minho hadn’t really progressed, rather being on a formal term with Minho as king. Sometimes there were visits, but it wasn’t like they were avoiding each other either.

Taemin’s family was as normal and kind as ever. Taemin told them how he found his brother and his wife in records in Seoul, but the couple went missing and hadn’t been found. With the camera, Taemin gave them a picture of what they looked like, but never the recording. That recording was never allowed to play unless it was only Minho, Taemin, and the respective company.

Onew and Luna had hung on the wall in the living room on top of the new blue couch with the same coffee table. Every morning the two would look at it, saying a silent good morning in their heads to them, as if saying it out loud would disturb their silence.

Needless to say, Minho and Taemin got along like they had from day one. Sometimes the Daegrent side would provide fun or useful at times. Taemin never thought he would be able to travel so many places in such little time with the speed Minho had. Minho trained himself to be able to stop things from falling, control a fire more often, and even actually paralyze things but he preferred to leave that alone. He didn’t want to learn too much too quickly and become way too powerful than he should.

There were times where Minho would get angry; it was never an avoidable thing, everyone was angry at times. The Royal power sometimes made it easy to keep at level, other times he felt completely flared up by it. There were plenty of times where Taemin was scared off by Minho; he wasn’t immune to it at all. Whether it was a fight, or something just to Minho, Seunghyun had always welcomed Taemin over when Minho was reckless as such—and just because he was king didn’t mean Seunghyun would let him off the hook. Neither did Bom.

It wasn’t perfect, but Minho called it perfect.

( The Onew and Luna theme:  Ascending )

They were outside behind Seunghyun’s house on the eighteenth of July: Taemin’s twenty-second birthday. It had been a full year since the escape, but that was in the back of all of their minds now; never was it really thought of.

Seunghyun suggested the occasion in his backyard. Seunghyun never offered anything before or done anything super friendly unless it was chatting with the neighbors. It seemed Seunghyun opened up more, especially when both the King and Queen were around.

Taemin’s parents and friends had gathered and the creatures he befriended during the year attended. Some of Minho’s friends, both human and inhuman, came along to celebrate as well.

(And of course Minho went over incredibly thoroughly how careful the creatures needed to be.)

It wasn’t a large event at all; just a backyard gathering a few drinks going around; Taemin avoiding the alcohol because he ended up not liking it at all. A lot of times Minho had his arms around him dramatically crying how old he was and Taemin would shove him off playfully. The atmosphere around was pleasant and inviting. People walked around the trees to admire Seunghyun’s work, not realizing the true story behind them rather than just a fairytale.

Taemin spent a lot of his time near Minho. Holding hands, they basically walked in circles to talk to everyone and had a good time.

As the day went by and settled to early evening, Taemin decided he’d rather start wrapping up the celebration, not wanting to go into night so it didn’t invite heavy drinkers to party too heftily. His guests started leaving one by one, group by group. His family and the creatures were the last to stay behind until his family decided they should head home.

  “Happy birthday, hun,” his mother smiled sweetly, hugging him to her with a kiss on his cheek, “You’ll always be my boy.”

Taemin melted into her hug and nodded, “I love you too, Mom.”

When she let go, his father replaced her with a short hug with a pat on the back, “You’re one of the best things that happened to the family, Tae. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Taemin patted him back, “Never have, Dad.”

His three siblings came up to him and each took their turn.

  “God, you’re getting big,” SoonKyu, the eldest squeezed him.

  “Just don’t get fat like he did,” Yoona gestured to their brother jokingly.

 Their brother snapped at Yoona before snatching Taemin, “Happy birthday, bro,” Heechul congratulated.

The creatures were left, enjoying the company all around until the evening really settled in and they headed home to the empire that was still being built.

They started cleaning up the party until they had a single wood table to fit the usual four to talk.

It was still so casual and there was a lot of talk still going around, laughter here and there. Minho put his arm around Taemin’s waist and would pull him closer without a thought, laying his head on the crook of his neck.

  “I’ll be back,” Seunghyun smiled to Bom, “Let me go put this inside.”

Seunghyun left the table swiftly, leaving the three.

  “So, how’s it been coming along?” Taemin asked her.

Bom stretched and put her chin on her palm, “We just finished the entire south and half of the east. The empire is huge so far even with just those two areas. We didn’t want to, but we’ve had to knock a few trees down to fit our blueprints.”

Minho hummed, “What about the center of the empire?”

  “That’s been done, Minho. Maybe if you came to check more often . . .” she joked, “But really, the Royal housing is complete; it basically where most of us resign for the night if they hadn’t chosen the south or east homes. It’s beautiful guys, you should come by.”

Taemin ran his hand over Minho’s head of short hair, “We should, shouldn’t we? Maybe sometimes next week; I’m off on Fridays and Sundays as usual.”

  “I got promoted, so I’m only off on Sundays,” Minho sighed, “Stupid promotion.”

Taemin chuckled, scratching his black hair, “He complains every day about it.”

  “I know, I hear it every time,” Bom rolled her eyes, pointing darts at Minho, “Sometimes I love to shut you out.”

  “At least I’m not cursing every five seconds over getting stubbed on the toe,” Minho stuck his tongue out like a child.

Bom scoffed.

The three of them joked around and made fun of each other for the time being. Night started rolling around, and the décor of yellow party lights and lanterns at the dark.

  “I’ve heard from Minji, you know,” Bom brought up, “You were asleep when it happened. She said to tell Taemin to get excited for today. I guess that’s a birthday wish for you.”

Taemin huffed a laugh and couldn’t help but smile, Minho’s head in his lap, “It’s weird knowing a Queen pays attention to my birthday. Give her my thanks if she doesn’t hear me now.”

  “Excuse me?” Seunghyun entered from the back door.

Bom looked up from them, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, I just have visitors that missed the party. They still wanted to see if Taemin was here,” Seunghyun gestured to the people who were coming out of the door.

Bom stopped smiling and stood immediately, almost flipping over the table if Minho wasn’t there, her face frozen with open, “There’s a . . . a real reason why the Queen told you . . . to get excited.”

Minho got off of Taemin’s lap and looked behind them to the back door, he himself shooting up from his seat at who he saw.

A man and woman walked out of the door hand in hand. The woman had raven black hair and a face light of make up, dressed in a loose dark blue dress with a white belt around her. The man had short brown hair, dressed in jeans and a loose plaid shirt. He had a box in his hand. Their smiles were so familiar. Their eyes were so familiar. Just the way they walked alarmed Minho of who they were.

Minho pointed at them almost crazily in disbelief, “. . . Onew  . . . Luna?”

Taemin shot up at the sight of them and ran at them, closed into both of them as a hugging trio, “This is impossible!”

Minho couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it at all.

This was real. They were the real Onew and Luna. Hugging on to Taemin so tightly with their smiles to go around, their tears to fall.

They were alive.

They were really alive.

  “You’re alive!” Taemin shouted, turning to hug Onew, “You’re alive!”

Onew’s eyes started growing red instantly, pressing his lips to a tight line, “We’re here. We’re here, we’re so sorry for how late we are.”

Taemin turned to Luna and hugged the smaller woman, “You’re okay! You’re here!”

  “Oh, Taemin,” Luna whispered, the tears falling but the pearl-white smile still on her face, “God, we missed you.”

Are they actually real? Minho looked at Bom, unable to process a single thing.

Bom nodded, her wide eyes never leaving them, They’re human. They’re . . . they’re real. It’s not a joke.

  “Of course they’re real!” Taemin turned his head to them, “They’re real!”

Minho took a shaky step forward, his head shaking, mouth turning downward, and eyes blurring so quickly, “Hyung? Hyu—Hyung . . .”

Onew walked up to Minho and met him halfway with a large, tight hug of reunion. Onew patted his back roughly, gesturing it was all okay, “We’re so glad you made it out. So glad. God, Minho . . .”

Luna tapped on Onew’s shoulder, separating the two of them and going in for Minho, giving him and even tighter hug than Onew had with her petite body, slightly crying into his chest, “I’ve missed this so much, Minho. All of us together. All of this.”

Minho pulled away from her, slightly hiccupping as he toyed with a strand of her black hair, “Luna . . .”

  “Sun Young,” she corrected him, wiping her eye carefully, “My name is Sun Young, Minho. Lee Sun Young.”

Minho looked up to Onew.

  “Same,” he smiled as he hugged Bom, “My name is Lee Jinki.”

Taemin walked up to Jinki as he parted from Bom with a few encouraging words, wiping his tears, “You two got married,” he smiled, “You two got married.”

  “In America,” Sun Young turned to them, “We didn’t have a ceremony or anything there. We planned once we got here we’d make if official here.”

Minho looked down at her, “America?”

  “It’s a long story,” she looked at him briefly, then looking at Seunghyun, “But he seems to know who we are and we don’t know how.”

  “Minho’s father,” Seunghyun bowed. Minho now knew the future Minho’s father sent to Seunghyun was this very moment, down to their names.

  “Long story,” Minho responded with a laugh combined with a cry, wiping his eyes away.

  “We made it out the gate,” Jinki nodded his head, petting Sun Young’s hand, “Had our things and everything. A creature we knew, Donghae, just swooped us up and took us into another direction. He was a deaf creature; he couldn’t hear a single protest we had.”

  “He flew all the way over an ocean,” she shook her head, “We’d stopped protesting by then, just letting him take his course because we thought we’d find our way back easily . . . We saw a beach, a real beach in a matter of hours in the dark and he suddenly started going down; before we fell I checked him. His heart had given out from the excitement he went through and I guess he knew that. His wish was to see the ocean with us on his back if we were ever free. And, well, he got it.”

Taemin had Minho in his lap, his head on Minho’s shoulder as he listened. Minho just couldn’t believe it. It seemed so unreal the two of them were in front of him. He half expected Jonghyun to show up out of the blue.

  “We fell into the ocean and the currents were strong, pulling us two everywhere while Donghae just sank to the ocean floor,” a corner of Jinki’s mouth turned downward, “It wasn’t long until we both knew we would drown so we just held on, trying to look for the surface. But I out, and she told me it only took her a minute before she followed.”

Sun Young started messing with her hair, “We woke up on the beach with a large group around us. Jinki was still out and I freaked when they touched my arm with the numbers on it . . . But they knew. They all showed some part of them that they were creatures. Creatures!” she gave a small laugh of disbelief, “They even fetched for our things and took us in to their home where they aided us, but mostly Jinki. He was out cold for the rest of the night. I thought it was weird at first and I guess it was all the salt water I swallowed because I forgot creatures originated in Hangul. We were in another country, they looked completely different from us, and yet they spoke it. We washed up in California, can you believe that?”

  “I woke up that morning,” Jinki shook his head and pulled Sun Young on his lap, “Sun Young told me everything and that we were going to be okay. And we were. We spent this year in California; with one of the creatures an official with all of America’s security system, he made us legal citizens. We got our own little house, new friends, and married half way into the year.”

Minho looked down to their forearms, “And you still have the burns,” Minho revealed he kept his as well. With a year passing, it was no longer an awful memory, but one of enlightening.

  “We decided to keep them,” Jinki nodded, “I know it sounds like a terrible thing to keep, but, as much as we hated it, this was our lives,” he held up both of their arms, “This is how we met. So we’re keeping them.”

Minho got off of Taemin, sitting next to him while Taemin asked, “What happened in America?”

Jinki chuckled and looked directly at Taemin as he spoke, “We decided we needed to come back. We planned day one to find Namwon and settle here. We got ourselves ready a week ago and came out here. You’d be surprised how many creatures run the security system here! When we went to become legal, the woman we met was the Sulliecient I met back in school. It was a great greet until she saw the mark on our arms. She knew exactly what to do; she’d been doing it a lot over this year with all the other escapers from the prison. She gave us all our legal information, declaring us who we originally were—the people who were originally born here. Our true selves.”

  “So we booked the hotel here as fast as we could and . . . here we are, walking down the street trying to find where you would possibly live and we saw these lights. We hoped this was right,” Sun Young stretched her hand across the table, holding on to Taemin’s, “And we know it’s your birthday today.”

  “Happy birthday, Tae,” Jinki pushed the box forward, “It might seem kind of childish, considering this was meant for you a long time ago, but better late than never.”

Taemin furrowed his brows, opening the box and then looking at the sky with a laugh, looking back and pulling out the green bunny—the same green bunny from when he was little because it had his name on the bottom left foot, “How did you manage to get this?”

  “That . . . bad day,” Jinki sighed, “That fight with those people was over the bunny and how they didn’t want you having it. They’d ripped it up and thrown it out but I’d sewn it back together and they were . . . well, irrationally furious. They had plans, too, but I never let go of the bunny. I kept it and hid it once SangJung had put me in my room.”

The mention of SangJung felt so foreign to Minho. It was so long ago since they ever said his name or even thought about him. He was a lost memory that would only be remembered by mention or nightmare.

  “You’ve had this ever since I was six,” Taemin shook his head with a smile, “Why do you always end up as the saint?” he laughed.

  “Because I love you,” Jinki easily replied, “And I’m sorry for all that I’ve put you through; what happened to you when I was gone away, and after the prison escape. I know you all probably thought were got trapped back there, but we were positive you made it out.”

Minho scratched his head, “And I was so sure you two made it out.”

  “Well good call,” Jinki chuckled.

  “Not really,” Minho grimaced somberly, “I kind of gave in to the thought you two were gone.”

Both of them silently ‘Oh’d then Sun Young spoke, “Well, now that we’re all here, everything’s going to be okay. We’ll get a place around here and nothing will ever happen again.” She bumped foreheads with Jinki.

  “Right,” Jinki looked at Minho, “So . . . how’ve you been about Jonghyun?”

Seunghyun had the two of them cancel their hotel and stay in his home for the few days until Minho and Taemin could get Taemin’s old room turned into the guest bedroom. Seunghyun didn’t want them spending unnecessary money.

Bom had said goodbye to all of them, promising she would be back tomorrow for a day with all of them to be together again. She gave a hug to each and every one of them, saving Sun Young for last, having a small chat with her before hugging her again and left.

Seunghyun was in his bedroom, and Jinki and Taemin were in the guest bedroom talking. Minho was finishing up the dishes he told Seunghyun he’d clean up before going to the guest room they were in, but saw Sun Young on the couch in front of the lit fire place changed into an oversized cream-knitted sweater, a mug in her hand as she looked at pictures of Minho on the mantel.

Minho stood by the couch, silently asking if he could sit down in which Sun Young gestured her invitation, “How are you?” he sat close to her.

She smiled softly, taking a sip from her mug, “I’m doing great. I’ve been tired a lot, but I’m feeling wonderful. Most likely the best day of my life so far.” She set down her mug on the table and ran a thumb over Minho’s cheek, “You’ve got weight back on you.”

Minho softly scoffed, “I hope you’re not telling me I’m fat.”

Sun Young chuckled and shook her head, “There’s no way the King of creatures would get fat, right?”

He shrugged at the joke and stuck his tongue out.

He had missed Sun Young so badly. He missed joking with her and just talking to her for the sake of her company. It was even a bit hard to stop calling her Luna every chance he got to say her name. He wanted to say it over and over again, relishing on the fact the name had a living body to go with.

Sun Young leaned her head on Minho’s shoulder looking at the dimmed fire, “I’m so glad it’s all worked out, you know? We can finally move on really, now. I’m going to be a nurse. Jinki’s going to be a teacher, too, actually. Can you believe it? Of all things. . .” she chuckled, “I’ve waited so long for all of this. To finally grow up the right way.”

With a soft smile, Minho pulled Sun Young’s body over his lap, cradling the woman to him as she just blankly stared at his shoulder with her own smile.

Minho missed protecting Sun Young with his own hands.

  “It sounds like we’re going to live like movie endings, huh?” Minho chuckled, peering down at her.

Sun Young playfully hit Minho’s shoulder, “Of course!”

For a few minutes, they sat there like that and Minho was ready to lift her off into the guest bedroom. But he kept still. An instinct to be even more careful took over his body, refusing to lift her yet.

Minho looked down at her, trying to decipher what could possibly be wrong, but he couldn’t pinpoint what could even be wrong. He stared at Sun Young’s face, and hers staring back at his like he knew.

Without thinking about it, without looking away from her face, he placed his hand over the woman’s flat stomach. His hand fluttered, his heart fluttered, a small kind of adrenaline passing through the veins of his arm. There was something almost nonexistent there—not even there at all, and yet it was. No sign, no figure to it, but it coursed through Sun Young. An energy that turned into fire as it raced to Minho’s heart had his mouth drop.

Sun Young smiled with a short laugh.

  “Are you serious?” Minho looked at her dead in the eyes.

She covered her eyes with her hand and laughed, “Yeah. I’m serious. I’m pretty sure you can’t deny whatever just happened to you. You looked shocked.”

Minho looked at the fireplace, the couch, the table, the mug, everything as his excitement made him so disoriented, “Oh my god. How far are you even?”

  “I’m only three weeks,” she tried sitting up in his lap, “I was planning on telling Jinki tonight.”

Minho held on to her dearly, hugging her, but being careful not to hug the life out of her.

They were really doing it. No more wishing, no more planning, no more thinking about it. Sun Young was to be a mother and Jinki a father. They were having a baby.

  “Congratulations,” Minho said, trying to be hush so the people in the guest room wouldn’t hear, “I’m ready to be this kid’s uncle, no joke.” He had her get up and he got on his knees, pressing his face to her stomach bluntly, “Please, please, please come quickly, I want to spoil you!”

  “Minho!” she jokingly scolded, hitting him on the top of his head, “Stop being stupid!”

She helped him up to his feet and he just hugged her again. He was too excited in fact. After talking and only thinking about it, it was so . . . different for things to actually happen. Minho couldn’t get over it.

  “Come on,” he held her hand, leading her out of the living room, “I’ll get Taemin out of here and you . . . yeah, you got to go do that,” he laughed quietly. When they came to the door, Minho knocked on it before entering, “Let’s go, Tae.”

  “’Kay,” he answered, getting up from his spot on the bed and hugging Jinki, “Goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Goodnight,” Jinki smiled, “Goodnight, Minho.”

Taemin made his way to the door, hugging Sun Young as well, “Goodnight.”

  “Have a safe trip home,” she well-wished them, “Goodnight, Minho.”

Minho tipped his head towards her, gave a night wish to Jinki and headed out of the room, closing it behind Taemin. The two of them put their shoes on and locked Seunghyun’s door as they left, walking the streets to the apartment.

When they got home, they did their usual routine to get ready for bed. Under the green covers they went and Taemin his side with a goodnight, Minho drawing close and holding him from behind.

  “Hey,” he whispered.

Taemin looked back at him, “What?”

  “I noticed you don’t call me Hyung anymore,” Minho chuckled, pecking him on the mouth.

Taemin scoffed, turning back, “I grew out of it. I like you as Minho, not ‘Hyung.’”

Minho laughed, pressing his lips to the back of his neck for a moment before retracting, “Hey.”

  “What?” Taemin chuckled, amused, “What is it this time?”

Minho held on to him a little more tightly, “When do you think we’d have one?”

  “Have what?” Taemin turned, confusion written on his face.

Minho’s lips pressed against each other, trying not to laugh at his own embarrassment, “When do you think we’d have a kid? Surely, you know, of course not now, but you know, at some time?”

Taemin sat up and turned his lamp on, eyes set on Minho strictly, “What’s bringing this up?”

Minho shagged his unkempt hair, “Sun Young’s pregnant.”

The younger’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped, holding on to Minho’s shoulder, “Really? But she’s still so tiny!”

  “She’s only three weeks,” Minho smiled, “She’s telling Jinki tonight.”

  “A baby Sungmin or a baby Naeun . . .” Taemin stared at the covers, “I can’t believe I’m going to have a blood related niece or nephew. I . . .” he looked back at Minho, “I can’t believe this.”

Minho kept quiet with a smile on his face, waiting.

  “After college,” Taemin suddenly answered, suddenly excited, “After I’m out of college. After getting married at least, too, I mean, I do want to become a Choi or you become a Lee, you know.” He chuckled, “That’s three years from now, Minho.”

  “Good for me,” Minho smiled, reaching over to turn out Taemin’s lamp. Taemin faced him this time, both of them holding on to each other, “Waiting doesn’t matter.”

The love was clearly in their eyes; neither of them falling asleep, but sitting there watching. They smiled. They’d laugh. Sometimes they’d move their hands. They’d kiss at points. Sometimes short, sometimes long.

Minho tread his hand through Taemin hair as he pulled him close to his lips, a sigh escaping him as he felt Taemin’s grasp on his back pull him closer. Taemin would lean in so close that he was almost on top of Minho, clearly okay with where this was going.

Taemin backed away and pulled his shirt over his head and forced Minho’s off, returning to his lips and wandering his hands down Minho’s bare torso while Minho held him there. They both laughed lightly into the kiss and how it ended up somewhere in a matter of seconds.

Minho kissed down Taemin’s face, to his neck and over his right shoulder, the younger’s head dropping to the crook of Minho’s neck. Minho sighed out and ran his hands down Taemin’s sides, his eyes opening and looking at the black marks of his bond with him, “Forever, right?”

Taemin hummed with a smile, bringing his lips away from Minho’s skin and facing him, “A King and King and a Queen. The Daegrent, the Warrant, and the human. I’m pretty sure that’s going to last a long time with the world we live in.”

  “The Royal Bloodline,” Minho smiled, “The saviors of the people. The saviors of the creatures.”

Taemin held up his right wrist, his sign glowing bright, “You’re the hero of everyone, Minho.”

Minho brought Taemin back down into a kiss that he would make forever engraved into Taemin’s head. The truth swirling in both of their heads about everything that’d happened to both of them and came to pass in a daunting, but epic end. 

Joon, the cause of the entire event.

Minho's entry.

The suffering both he and Taemin endured.

Meeting Jonghyun

Meeting Onew.

Meeting Luna.

Meeting Bom.

The planning.

The failures.

The pain.

The rise of the creatures.

All down to the peaceful lives they lived now.

The Escape to Redemption was Minho’s most sacred memory out of the rest of his eternity.

----Note~----

IT'S CLOSED.

IT'S OVER.

BOOK HAS BEEN SHUT. FINALLY.

This is the end to the journey guys. I'm more emotional than yesterday's final chapter!

It's the happy ending every body wanted and I hope it didn't disappoint at all.

(Btw if anyone caugh on to the reference of F(x)s new song Red Light, GOOD JOB IT'S A FANTASTIC SONG YE?)

The ending looks:

Minho - Colorful

Taemin - Everybody

Onew - Dream Girl

Luna - Rum Pum Pum Pum

Bom - Come Back Home

Seunghyun (TOP) - Oh Yeah

I know their emotions seem to go on and off. And I thought that would never happen, but then I realized I was literally writing from my own experience. Last Saturday my little cat passed away tragically and I'm kind of doing what Taemin does. It's on and off, easy and hard, and really confusing. It's ridiculous how real it is.

When I first made up ETR, back to when it was "Monster" to "When Time Goes By, It'll all Disappear," I originally DID kill off Onew and Luna but I couldn't keep to it at all when I revised it a year ago. I had enough death, bring on the living!

Sorry, Jonghyun. :c

And I'm still planning one more bts and that's IT!

Anyhow.

This was a painful yet amazing fic to write and I wouldn't have had it any other way. These characters are forever stuck inside of me!

What am I going to do? I'm probably going to wake up one morning thinking I haven't written ETR and need to update. Oh, I feel so sad, yet so happy!

I'm incredibly grateful to each and every one of you that has made it this far! Your attention is what gave me every reason to keep going and keep trying to NOT leave this fic unfinished for the rest of my life. I would love to know every one of you just to give you the individual thank yous you all deserve. You've stuck through and I couldn't ask for anymore than that.

I'd like to thank all the commentors: Scotty , iluvbubbles_yay , eunhaeshipper15 , starhedgehog11 , bluemoonluvkpop0596 , saramkchung , BBVIPTTGSD , Bored0ut0fHerMind , rickjoe1004 , moonlightangel77 , Yunie1827 , and iluvcutestuffandidky.

And to also take note, to this very moment, Escape to Redemption has earned a gracious 3,876 views by you all, 79 subs, and 10 upvotes! From the beginning, March 30, 2013 (But also created in the early 2012) to today, July 05, 2014 (Well, a very late July fifth), you've all accompished this and have done so much to make this story come to its very end!

In my word, Escape to Redmption is 310 pages long and approximately (because I end up adding/subtracting while in AFF) 123,422 words. I NEVER THOUGHT I'D MAKE IT THAT LONG! My original goal was still 130k, but alas, it's okay!

It's been a long journey with all 79 of you and I hope I can provide another entry one day that you'd all enjoy!

I love you all to the bottom of my heart. It's been a pleasure with you all most definitely!

(I'm taking the LONGEST time trying to hit the Story Complete box ahhhhhhhhhhh)

See you someday again! Love you all! <3

~FlaMinhoe